Devlin Molony (deva) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-06-19 01:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | #january 2018, devlin, devlin x rostislav, rostislav |
Who: Dev and Rost
When: morning, Thursday, Jan 25th
Where: their home
Status: Complete
Rost was old enough to have had several Bad phone calls in his life. He knew the tone in someone’s voice when they had horrible news to deliver. He heard that tone in Zania’s voice immediately when he answered her call. He listened to what she had to say as he sat up in bed, where he’d been stuck with Devlin for what felt like an eternity -- not that Dev had been bad company, but it was impossible to miss that there was something really wrong with them. A wave of powerful sadness washed over him as Zania spoke, which was more emotion than he’d been able to feel in days. He didn’t say much back, just asked a few murmured questions and offered his thanks before they hung up.
Greer was gone. Rost hated that he could feel the difference in his well being already. That shouldn’t matter -- she was gone. All of them were, according to what Zan had said, but Rost didn’t care about any of the others. Their Greer was gone. He put one hand on Dev and covered his eyes with the other as grief came rushing over him. It was a sadly familiar grief, compounded by the fact that he wouldn’t be the only one feeling it.
The phone ringing had barely nudged Dev to consciousness but the sound of Rost's voice brought him fully back and he lay still, listening to him with a sinking feeling. Something bad was happening, had happened, and he was acutely aware that Greer wasn't in bed with them. He couldn't hear her in the kitchen, didn't remember her leaving, barely remembered the last time he got up either and the wrongness of it all made it hard to breathe. He slowly turned around when he felt Rost's hand on him and the silence when the call ended was oppressive. He knew it was Greer, what else would have Rost crumbling like this if not the loss of their lover. "What happened?" he whispered, though a part of him didn't want to know. If Greer was alive, Rost would be rushing him to get out of bed so they could go see her, if there was any hope, he wouldn't look like he did, sit as still as he did. Greer had to be dead.
For a long, terrible moment, Rost wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to speak again. At least not for a while. He wasn’t even crying yet, there was just a deep and yawning sense of loss inside him. Another of his greatest loves, gone. He didn’t know that she was dead yet, Zania hadn’t said that she’d been killed, but what she had said didn’t give him any hope. Greer had been closed up in another place, the place the fog monsters had come from, and what hope could that leave. He forced himself to get it together enough to speak -- Devlin deserved that. Greer had been his first, and they’d come to this cursed little town together. Rost owed him words, at least. “She is gone,” he whispered back, dropping his hand to his lap so he could look at his other beloved. “They tried to fix it, the ... the ones with the dreams. But they had to close the hole, locked them away in ... a different place. The place the fog came from.” It probably wasn’t a great explanation, but it was hard to pull the English words out of his brain at the moment.
He didn't need to say more than that, Dev understood it fully as well as the weight of what he was telling him. Greer might not be dead but the odds of her surviving something like that were fleeting. He thought back on that horrid empty feeling he'd gotten when he touched her when she wouldn't wake up and for a few seconds he wondered if he could ever breathe in again. His lungs hurt, his throat felt full and restrained like he'd just swallowed a golf ball. If he could speak he'd want to tell Rost there had to have been some mistake but he knew it wasn't so, Greer was gone and he felt it in his bones that it was true. He watched Rost for a long time before he realized he was breathing again, quiet and shallow as if breathing too loudly would shatter something in him or in his lover. "She's gone," he finally whispered and while it wasn't a question as such, he knew the answer all too well, he still felt like he was asking, as if Rost had answers, as if there was something they could do to fix this.
Rost lost track of how long they sat there in silence. It felt like time had ground to a halt anyway, like they would always be trapped here in this bereft moment. It was so hard to take in, but he didn’t feel any denial in himself. Not like he had with Delle’s death. Before he’d truly known that losses like this could happen. Rost knew better now, and he knew by how much better he felt physically that she was gone. Whatever had taken her over had been sucking the life out of both he and Dev. Maybe someday Rost would feel relief that it was over, but right then he couldn’t. He would’ve rather died than let something terrible happen to her. Dev’s quiet words finally made his control crack and Rost’s eyes teared up as he reached for Dev’s hand. “Yes,” was all he could really say. He suddenly felt very lost, like he didn’t recognize anything around him. What were they going to do without her?
Was that what Dev had been waiting for? To see which one cracked first, which one had to be strong. He sat up more fully, pulling Rost into a tight embrace. He knew grief would come, strong and overwhelming, but at the moment he just felt numb, like someone had punched the crap out of him. Numb, but would feel it in the morning. He couldn't bring himself to mumble empty platitudes like 'maybe we can find her' or 'she'll be okay, she's strong'. What did it matter how strong a person was when they were stuck in a hell dimension full of gigantic monsters? He felt like he should be there with her but he wouldn't want Rost anywhere near that place and he didn't want to leave him alone. He wanted to go find her things, touch every one and see if he could feel a connection to her, whether it was her ghost or her living memory but the thought was overwhelming too and he feared he would see something horrible if he did.
Out of the two of them, Rost thought Dev probably had more reason to cry. He’d known Greer longer, been with her first, they’d lived and traveled and been in love together ... he should be the one comforting Dev. But he couldn’t help the way he felt, and he was more than willing to return the support he was getting as soon as Dev needed it. Rost clung to him, burying his face into the crook of Devlin’s shoulder and let himself cry, though it was quiet and half-choked. The words she’s gone kept echoing around in his head until they didn’t mean anything anymore, swallowed up by the widening hole inside of him. He knew there was nothing they could do. The problem had been bigger than them and everyone else they’d asked about it, and the solution was obviously of the same ilk. There was no fixing it, and Greer would not be okay, that much seemed clear.
Dev had never lost someone this close to him before. Papa Morrow had been an old man and Dev hadn't seen him in years. It had sucked that he died but he hadn't been truly torn up about it. He was intimately familiar with death but there was no loss there, just ghosts he hadn't known when they were living. This was different. This was new. He felt lost and like he was stuck on a merry-go-round that was going too fast. His brain at least behaved like one, circling over and over through the same thoughts: She's alive, she has to be, she'll be okay, no she won't, nobody would survive a place like that, oh god, she's dead, she's dead, Greer is dead. No! She's alive, she has to be, she'll be okay, she's strong. No, nobody would survive that place, Greer is dead, oh god... On the outside he was quiet, clutching Rost tightly and staring at nothing. His body felt numb and in the middle of his merry-go-round of madness the stupid stray thought that he had no idea how to act came up unbidden. "What do we do?" he finally asked and his voice cracked when he tried to bring it above a whisper.
That was a good question, and Rost had no idea of an answer. His first instinct was to say ‘go to the witches,’ but witches had already been involved. They’d lost people too, presumably. Shayna Mae’s brother had been hurt in the fog, Nic had tried to fix it and failed. Or at least he’d failed at saving everyone. Rost truly didn’t know if it was one of those ‘this is the best possible outcome’ situations. Acceptable losses. Greer’s loss was not acceptable to them, but he had no idea what they could do about it. Rost felt so small and useless all of the sudden. He tried to get himself back in hand though, because Dev needed him. That was one thing he could do. He sat up straighter and let go with one hand to wipe at his red-blotchy face, sniffling and swallowing down that hard lump in his throat. “I do not know ... we try to find if there is any help for it ... but I am not hopeful,” he admitted in a murmur. Rost rubbed his hands against Dev a bit, seeing how shell shocked he looked. “And we feed ourselves.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, or drank any water, for that matter, and he was sure Dev was the same. They hadn’t exactly been able to take care of themselves for the past several days.
Could he eat? Dev wasn't so sure. He was hungry, physically he could feel that hunger gnawing on his stomach but everything from the chest up felt full and he wasn't sure he could swallow a single bite just yet. The dizziness didn't help, that speedy carousel in his mind making it hard to focus. Rost's touch helped a little and he took a shaky breath before forcing himself to move, rubbing Rost's arm gently. "Maybe... maybe we smoke," he said because that might make it easier to eat. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted to go out looking for Greer. He wanted... No, he didn't know what he wanted, just what he didn't want. He didn't want to be right now, maybe he wanted to go to sleep and wake up when this was just a distant memory, but it really didn't work like that. "She was... I think she was draining us," he said and god it felt like betrayal to say it out loud, but they both knew, he could feel it.
Rost didn’t have a real appetite either. Hunger, yes, but no appetite, as strange as that was. He just knew they needed to eat, and Greer would want them to. The real Greer, not the one that had been lurking around their home for the past couple of days. Dev’s words gave Rost an uncomfortable chill, but he knew they were true. He remembered bits and pieces of the day before, coming awake to find Greer just staring at him hungrily. He thought he’d asked for water and she’d ignored him, but maybe that had been a dream. There had been so many bad ones lately. But he could feel the difference in his body without her around. “Whatever was inside of her was,” he corrected gently. They both also knew that malevolent force hadn’t been their Greer. Rost took Dev’s hand and brought it up to his cheek for a second, then kissed the back of it before he started to get up. “You stay, I will get the smoke.” And water and some snacks, maybe.
"No," Dev said firmly. The thought of sitting alone in bed while Rost left the room jolting him into a near panic. He didn't expect Rost to disappear too, not logically, but he wasn't willing to sit there by himself, alone with his thoughts and straining to hear Rost's every move. "I'm coming with you, I at least need to drink something." He knew what he wanted to drink, overcome with the urge to drink every drop of alcohol they possessed and sink into some comfortable stupor. Not right away, he decided. They'd have an Irish wake for Greer when he'd had a little time to process this and then... Then he was getting fucking plastered. He shuffled out of bed after Rost, surprisingly steady on his feet all things considered. "I'm coming with you," he repeated, quieter, knowing Rost would understand the full meaning behind it.
Rost did understand, and he was honestly grateful for Dev’s insistence. For one, it was a good sign that he was able to get out of bed as well. But mostly Rost just didn’t want to be alone either. With a task in mind it would be easier, but it wouldn’t be too long before this new reality came crashing down on him, and he wasn’t sure he could keep it together when that happened. For now he took Dev’s hand and gave him a wan smile and a nod, then led the way out of the bedroom. They would face this together, even if that meant not actually facing it for a little while. It had to settle in first. In the kitchen, Rost poured them two big glasses of cold water, doing his best to ignore all of the reminders of Greer all around them -- her favorite tea on the counter, a little ceramic bowl she left her rings in when she did the dishes, leftovers in a container in the fridge. Who would remember to put away the leftovers now? Everything felt so surreal, like it couldn’t be true.
Dev wasn't wearing his gloves and his hands itched to pick up Greer's things to find out if he could feel her, even contact her. His powers weren't limited to dead people or memories, he could do more. The only thing stopping him right now was that if it was bad he might end up pissing himself and collapsing and Rost was already dealing with enough shit. No, he'd be smart, he could be smart even if his head felt like it was full of tornadoes. "Thanks," he said quietly as he picked up his glass and drank all the cool water in one long swig because once it touched his tongue he realized just how parched he was. As soon as it hit his stomach he also realized how hungry he was and while it felt so wrong to eat when Greer was dead or suffering... Well, she'd be furious if they didn't take care of themselves so if there was any chance she was returning... His heart hurt just thinking about it, sometimes hope was worse than sorrow.
Rost couldn’t think about the future yet, not for hope or for grief. All he could focus on was the current moment that felt like an elephant was sitting on his hollow chest. He felt like he was moving slow as he put the water jug back in the fridge, and pulled out some jam. They did have to eat, but he didn’t think he could stomach more than some toast with something sweet on it, so that was all he planned on making. His stomach didn’t want to accept it at first, all tied up in knots from deprivation and the huge, awful feelings looming over him. He remembered all the times he ate without hunger back when he was mourning Delle, and it seemed that he was in for many more days like that. At least he wasn’t alone this time -- Dev was the only light Rost could see. He could only cling to that and hope nothing took Dev away too. Rost didn’t think he would survive it.